Devotion 9.4.18

We’re going to mix things up in our devotions. We went rather deep with the summer series so we’re going to lighten things up by examining our faith through the lens of football.  If you have any favorite football teams, themes, moments, etc, send them to me and we’ll work them into the series.  Let’s have some fun with this!

Are you ready for some football?

I’m guessing most of you remember this well-loved intro to Monday Night Football.  The music and that phrase on the tv beckoned football fans to the end of Monday by relaxing in front of the tv for what they hoped would be a marquee matchup.  It was the great reward for surviving Monday.  And especially at the beginning of the fall, you were ready for some good football games after surviving a summer without.

Whether you prefer college, professional, or even high school, there is a certain yearning in many of us for the football season to return.  There are other things that we yearn for in life, often of differing value.  When we’ve been away from home (as we examined in the summer series), we can’t way to get back.  When our family is away, we look forward to seeing them again.  When the day is crazy and you haven’t gotten to sit down and eat a real meal, how good does a nice home cooked meal sound!

So what should we yearn for spiritually?  There’s any number of answers, but the passage that comes to my mind is this one:

And this is the word that was preached to you.    Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.² Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, ³ now that you have tasted that the Lord is good (1 Peter 1:25-2:3)

We should yearn for the Gospel!  What is that?  It literally means, “Good News”.  It is the good news that we and others are forgiven, and we should yearn to see that applied more and more to our lives.  So, we should also yearn to get rid of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander.  We crave good, forgiving news and those things suck that out of our lives.  So when we see any of those popping up, we need to tap into that craving and bring God’s Word, his good news, and his forgiveness back into our life.  When you feel those emotions, grab God’s Word on your phone.  Go to a memorized verse, and let it speak to you. 

This is what we yearn for.  Football is great, but this makes life even better!

Blessings!

Dan Borkenhagen

Associate Pastor

Hope Lutheran Church & School